Hey, @PaisleyUnderground. I like the Baldwins I have - I think they are Sylvanias. Baldwin was an organ company and sold a number of different tubes under the Baldwin brand. I have settled into two tubes with this amp. The aforementioned Valvo 6291 gold pin for Senns, and the Brimar 6060 Yellow Label for my custom Elleven Acoustica R1 Grado-like build. The Brimar is a big and spacious without being loose, which translates well with the R1s and the Valvo is a tight, technical, slamming tube with really great resolution and fantastic sense of space which works well for the Senns. Both are my top choice after well over a couple dozen tubes. I like these two so much that I ordered an extra few of each and am going to let the rest of my collection go. These two tubes just do it for me in this amp.
Thanks. It looks like the 6060 is a 12at7 variant. Brent Jesse is out of stock but I’ll look around.
I can’t find 6291 anywhere. Did you mean 6201, another 12at7 variant? Or is this a different kind of tube? I’m asking out of pure ignorance.
2x Siemens E88CC A-Frame gold pins in my Schiit Valhalla 2. These tubes are very clean and fairly linear. They smooth the treble and soften the edges a bit and give everything a nice 3-dimensional holographic feel with a hint of texture on the mids. Not at all congested, to my ears these really don’t lose much resolution or detail vs solid state. Not terribly warm, if anything they seem to roll off the bass slightly.
I was just going by the boxes. Looking directly at the tubes:
- The Brimar is the 6060
- You’re right about the Valvos - are all marked either 12at7-w or 6201
I bought the Brimars from PcX here in Canada and I rolled the dice on the valvos on fleabay.
In my amp, the 12ax7s have too much gain which, for me, means a smaller stage and less dynamics. The 12AT7 or even 12AU7 seem to hit the sweet spot on the volume knob.
In the suite tonight and heating up the Valvo with the my HD600s. It’s a glorious combination. I might be partial (I LOVE the 600s), but I think there is plenty bass on the 600s and the mid-range is just spooky. Feeding the amp with an RME ADI-2. No DSP engaged.
I would suggest some socket savers to get those tubes up and out of the chassis. More glow, and it runs cooler. I did this on my Schiit MJ2 until I sold it. I have one of those point and shoot temperature guns. Tubes can run up into the 200F temperature range.
Those are some nice tubes. Kudos.
I have found that socket savers can introduce noise to the tubez amp, though my experience is limited to this amp and a Freya. I have not tried them with this amp. They don’t run particularly hot in the MAD.
Thanks for the feedback. As with all things audio YMMV. 
Did you get noise in both devices? That would lead me to believe the socket saver was bad.
I tried about three pairs. The Freya was quite fussy. I gave up on them in that amp (6SN7s). They look super cool, though!
While I have not tried them in my MAD I am happy with the tubes going right into the amp sockets.
Today was just the second time I tried tube rolling, because I normally just use whatever is provided to me. My only other experience was buying the Treasure Globe 6sn7 to replace the stock JJ in my Lyr3, and that was good enough that I didn’t try any other 6sn7’s.
So yesterday, I listened to the Nautilus for the first time, starting with my Aeolus. The Nautilus came with stock tubes:
JJ KT88 power tubes
JJ 12ax7 input tube
Tung Sol (new production) 5AR4 rectifiers
I’d never heard the Aeolus sound like this, because it didn’t sound warm any more. Sounded good though.
Then it dawned on me… was the Verite going to be stripped of warmth? I plugged it in and the answer was unfortunately yes. Oh dear…
Went to bed a little disappointed, but knowing that Brent Jessee is only 40 minutes drive away, I thought I could probably salvage the situation by swapping out some of the tubes.
This morning, I remembered that I had a spare Baldwin 12au7 yellow label (made by Raytheon I think) that Zach had given me to try on the Pendant. From what I had read, the input tube should be the first one to roll, but could such a tiny tube make a difference?
The answer is yes. Wow. Replacing the stock JJ 12ax7 with the Baldwin 12au7 added back enough warmth to make the Nautilus sound neutral with the Verite, and warm with the Aeolus, but the amp still kept its speed, natural sound and huge stage.
I should try the Baldwin green label that’s in my Pendant to see if that makes a difference. Those Baldwins are cheap, so maybe I should buy a bunch as backups, even if I end up choosing a different 12au7 to be my permanent solution.
I suppose I should keep the Baldwin for now, and try rolling the 5ar4 next, followed by the KT88. And once I have a good baseline, then maybe return to the 12au7. But if there’s a better way to do this, please let me know.
I’m a huge fan of those Baldwin 12au7 tubes. Zach gave me a few for my Pendant and I have yet to try a sensibly priced 12au7 that beats it. I’m curious what you find for 5ar4 tubes. I just snagged a DNA Sonett 1 that uses them, and I was shocked at the limited supply of nos versions and the prices. I emailed Brent to see what he could do for me, but I fear my budget may relegate me to new production tubes only.
You’re doing fine. Roll what you want when you want. People will claim that you should do one tube first over the others but I think it’s a bit amp dependent. You just have to keep in mind tubes need burn in; however, if I rolled a tube and it didn’t sound good I didn’t keep it hoping burn in would fix it.
If you’re happy now you could stop.
So I’m definitely becoming a real audiophile because I bought myself a nice little tube amp (Lyr 3) and decided to try tube rolling for the first time. I carefully researched what was available, following the advice I read somewhere to avoid any of the expensive tubes everyone’s obsessed with and just try something decent. I made my choice and ordered and the box came in the mail.
I opened it up and went to switch the tubes, excited for this new sound experience, only to discover that I’d bought THE SAME TUBE THAT CAME WITH MY AMP! Somehow, it hadn’t even occurred to me to determine what tube I already owned.
So I can confirm that the Tung-Sol 6SN7GTB sounds almost exactly the same as the Tung-Sol 6SN7GTB. The diminishing returns of this hobby, man.
I now look at the shape of the metal guts to very roughly predict the tone. With at least some amps more metal mass sounds deeper, while less mass sounds brighter. Harmonics and clarity are tougher to predict, and vary within brand/model. Some “NOS” tubes were new long before getting passed around audio circles (for years?) and are now random old tubes that still test well.
We’ve all dome something along those lines at some point in our audiophile careers.
Thanks. I mostly just think it’s funny that I’m such an idiot.
Unless you’re comparing a NOS (new old stock) Tung-Sol 6SN7GTB (round plate black glass), which is one of the most sought-after vintage tubes you can find (and very expensive), to a new production Tung-Sol (which is totally different and made in Russia), in which case they’re very VERY different 
Welcome to the absurd world of tubes where understanding anything about anything takes, like, 5 hours of research (can you tell I have a love-hate relationship with tubes?). 
I’m sure there will be people who disagree with me here, but I think that selling the Nautilus (an ~$8K amp, if I recall correctly) with new production JJ tubes is a bit of a sin. I’m no tube guru, but every stock tube I’ve tried simply doesn’t do its amp justice. And I don’t mean by a little; I mean by a lot. For context, I would much rather listen to my Pendant with my Hugo 2 and good tubes than my DAVE and the JJ’s. I have no opinion on which tubes you should roll in, but I promise, it will be a rewarding change.
I don’t disagree with you, but I also sympathize with amp manufacturers, who have to provide a consistent-sounding and consistently-priced set of tubes with each amp, so they have to use new production. And maybe they just assume that whoever buys the amp either has a stash of NOS tubes at home or will go out and buy some.
When you tried out different combinations for your Pendant, did you have a particular tube as your baseline and swapped others in and out? Or did you just randomly try different combinations until you hit on something that sounded the best?
The issue would be the arguments and price increase related to who got what NOS and why. I think you buy something like that knowing you’ll likely roll a bit.
I can understand why builders sell with new production even if it’s not the best the amp can sound.